


The Office

by ultragirlvfr750



Category: Holby City
Genre: F/F, how i spend my time, in the middle of the night, like white hot fury, my excuse for this is that i am very very angry, when the two idiot surgeons in love are keeping me awake
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-27
Updated: 2016-10-27
Packaged: 2018-08-27 07:37:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8392885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ultragirlvfr750/pseuds/ultragirlvfr750
Summary: Bernie Wolfe finally drags her arse back from her extended angst vacation in the Ukraine





	

**Author's Note:**

> I did a bad, bad thing. Because I'm still stinging in light of the big reveal about Bernie Wolfe this sort of wrote itself. Seriously read at your peril. Or if you too are seven shades of furious at the blonde job. Otherwise I suggest giving it a miss. And I won't be the least be offended.

Bernie Wolfe turns into the Holby carpark, her stomach in knots, her eyes involuntarily scanning the cars in their stalls. She can’t pretend she’s not searching for Serena’s and when she finds it, unerringly, in a sea of nondescript vehicles she shivers.

She pulls into a stall as far away from Serena’s car as possible and steps into the bone-chilling damp of the December morning. She’d forgotten how imposing Holby City looks, how metallic, grey in the watery morning light of winter. Strange to think that the last time she was here it was autumn, the leaves on the trees a riot of colour, a hazy wash as she drove away swiping harshly at the tears on her face.

She’s not sure what she expected but as the automatic doors slide open and she catches sight of the familiar coffee bar, the bustle, the porters and family members milling about she realizes that in the three months away life here at Holby has moved on seamlessly without her. RTCs have been managed, lives have been saved and lost. Grief and hope, love and fear, acts of heroism, and the irrevocable sting of death have continued to flow through this place and the fact that she has not participated in any of it is of very little consequence.

Serena. It all hinges on Serena. It’s been three months without Serena. Six weeks since she’d received the email. The tentative olive branch. Three sentences. Memorized. Indeed Bernie felt some days they were branded on her.

“I’m tired of being angry. It’s time to come back. The hospital needs you.”

Backward and forward she’d played and replayed them until they would yank her from her restless sleep, her feet tangled in the thin hotel sheets. 

The subject line. 

“What Next…?”

She’d sat on the email for a week, unable or unwilling to face its content. When she’d finally summoned the courage and clicked into the body her stomach dropped and she hadn’t been able to stifle the cry, low in the back of her throat. 

The communication was so perfectly Serena and Bernie’s heart ached even as she felt another wave of endless tears building behind her eyes.

“I’m tired of being angry.”  
   
She’d had every right to continue to be angry, to be furious, to vent her fury but instead she’d chosen the road of forgiveness, because isn’t that what Serena Campbell always did when it came to her, to Bernie Wolfe, she forgave. 

“It’s time to come back.”  
   
Bernie had felt the first tears on her cheeks. Serena wasn’t telling her it was time to come home, only that it was time to come back and the difference had not been lost on Bernie, the subtle distancing in those five small words. 

“The hospital needs you.”

And indeed Bernie had heard, in that same week, surprisingly from Jason of all people. The short, sharp sentences perfectly mirroring his speech. She’d smiled even as she’d read the content. Pure Jason, so much more like Serena than Serena perhaps realized. Like nephew, like Aunty. 

 The hospital needed her. AAU needed her. The trauma unit needed her. But Serena had been making it clear that she, the woman herself, was perhaps past the point of needing Bernie Wolfe.

She had composed response after response, the words niggling at her all through her shifts as she worked mindlessly with new colleagues who, for all intents and purposes, she knew nothing about. There was no Dom here. No Morven or Fletch. At least none she would allow herself to become close to. And there was certainly no Serena.

Nothing had seemed appropriate and she couldn’t find the words. Twenty four hours of silence turned into three days. She’d bitten down so hard on the inside of her cheek that she’d tasted blood and yet still she couldn’t think of one way to answer Serena, without pouring out each raging hot 'sorry' that was constantly present on her lips. 

In the end she hadn’t answered at all. After two weeks what could she possibly say? In this one simple task she’d failed Serena once again. Best let it go. Let her go.

And she’d stayed, until she’d had her belly full and could stay no more. She’d woken one morning in early December and realized that something had to change. She had to change and that she didn’t want hiding forever in Kiev to be the final chapter in the story she told with Serena. 

She hadn’t called. Hadn’t reached out. Once she’d made her decision she knew that nothing short of seeing Serena in person, confessing like a penitent, being brave enough to allow Serena to finally see her emotion, her fear, her pain, indeed her love, was the only way forward. She had to try.

 Of course Serena knew she was coming. Her hastily worded email to Ric, acting CEO had started a chain reaction of paperwork, and Bernie was sure, NHS gossip.

She’d made her departure swift, wrapping things up like a woman possessed. Now that she was finally ready she couldn’t get to Holby fast enough  
.  
 But now that she is finally here, in the lift, travelling inexorably closer to Serena, Bernie feels the old familiar fear clawing at her gut. She squares her shoulders.

“Keep your bottle, Major,” her voice reverberating off the lift doors. “Steady on.”

As she walks the gauntlet through the halls of AAU toward the middle of the ward her senses are assailed by memories. The beeping of the equipment, porters moving, patients, even the harsh medicinal smell is almost unique to these walls. Wasn’t it exactly in this spot that she and Serena had wrangled over the diagnosis from Guy Self and she’d made the quip about Occam’s razor? The MRI room. The side room where she’d so often allowed herself to unabashedly stare at Serena. 

As she strides closer to the middle of the ward she becomes aware of the whispering. Subtle glances, titters. When she turns to confront the source of the sound she sees nurses she recognizes and some that she doesn’t, all with identical expressions of shock on their faces. It’s true she wasn’t due back until next week but her heart cramps all the same.

Bernie expected whispers from the staff but is unprepared for the shock on the faces of Morven and Fletch as she rounds the corner and heads to the desk.

 Morven’s face turns ashy and she drops the chart she is holding on a nearby cart and speeds up to intercept Bernie.  
   
“Ms. Wolfe,” she stutters, “What are you doing here?"

“Lovely to see you too Dr. Digby. This is still the trauma unit is it? “ Bernie tries, the joke falling flat.

“We weren’t expecting you back until next week,” Morven replies, “And there’s something tha-“  
   
Fletch cuts her off.

“What Morven means is that while we’re right happy you’re back, we’ve a lot on at the moment. Perhaps best to let Raf get you up to speed before you wade in,” he says as he deftly steers away from the office she shares with Serena.

“Your recovery is going well I take it,” Bernie gently extricates her arm from his grip. 

“As good as can be expected.” 

  “And I want to hear all about it, but if you don’t mind Fletch, I’ve got some fences that need mending,” she motions over her shoulder at the office, the blinds conspicuously draw against the harsh light of the ward.

“Ms. Wolfe,” she hears Raf call and he strides toward her before she can open the door.

“Mr. di Lucaa,” Bernie parrots his formality and hitches her bag higher onto her shoulder.

“We weren’t expecting you back quite so soon. You aren’t on the shift rota until next week.”

 “Flew in yesterday, found myself at loose ends. Thought I’d come in and make a start in helping with the Christmas rush. It’s always a madhouse around here at this time of the year,” she tries to smile

“We appreciate all the help we can get,” Raf starts.

“So I’d best get things sorted with Serena,” Bernie drops her voice searching Raf’s face for any sign of what is to come.  

“Ah yes, Serena,” Raf grimaces, “It’s just that this morning,” a pause, “you may have caught her at a bad moment. She’s been up to her eyes and, perhaps it’s best if we do rounds and I can get you up to speed.”

“I appreciate what you’re trying to do Dr. di Lucca, but I’ve put this off long enough. I need to make a clean breast of things, so if you don’t mind.”

“Bernie you really shouldn’t disturb-“ Raf interjects as Bernie turns to push the door open.

She freezes in the doorway.

Serena Campbell is up against her desk, Bernie’s desk, well, what had been her desk, eyes closed, head thrown back, her hands entangled in the chestnut mane of a lithe woman in purple scrubs.  
 The woman’s face is buried in Serena’s cleavage and Bernie can see bite marks glistening along Serena’s collarbone. Territory claimed. Serena’s blouse is half hanging from her shoulders, her chest heaving, her hands raking the woman’s back, long and coiled and lean. Her scrubs have ridden up and Bernie can see a scar weaving across the sweep of her hip. Familiarity knifes through Bernie and she drops her bag, her breath knocked out of her in a low hiss.

Serena’s eyes fly open at the sound and she stares, heavy lidded at Bernie as Alex lazily lifts her head, tossing her hair as she looks over her shoulder.

“Hi Bern.”

“Alex?” Bernie’s voice is like dust.

“Ms. Wolfe, I see you’ve decided to join us,” Serena’s voice is a low husk and Bernie feels her face flaming as she struggles to breathe.

“I’d best crack on,” Alex leans in and plants a lingering kiss on Serena’s mouth. “Albies at eight?”

“It will be top of mind all day,” Serena smiles, as she shrugs back into the blouse, her deft fingers making short work of the buttons and the fleeting look of softness and desire that she bestows upon Alex impales Bernie on grief so all encompassing she can barely stand.

“I’ll have the shiraz at the ready,” Alex replies as she strides past Bernie.  
   
She stops briefly in the doorway, close enough that Bernie can smell the familiar scent of her muskiness mixed with Serena’s perfume and she swallows reflexively at the bile at the base of her throat.  
   
Alex smiles at the poleaxed Bernie Wolfe.

“Brilliant woman is our Serena. Smart. Sexy, and so very, decisive,” she pulls the last word from her mouth like molasses. 

She turns on her heel and strides past the desk, tipping a mock salute to Raf as she goes. For her part Bernie continues to stare.

“S, Serena,” she falters

“Ms. Campbell, thank you. And do stop hovering in the doorway. Since you’re here, I’ve a lot to catch you up on. It’s going to be a monstrously busy day and I’d like to be finished on time,” her voice is efficient but there is a lightness in her eyes that Bernie has never seen before. “As you can see I’ve got a rather important engagement this evening and I would really prefer not to keep her waiting.”

Bernie ghosts to her side of the desk and numbly sets her bag down on the blotter.

“Oh, and Ms. Wolfe?”  
   
Bernie’s eyes fly up to meet Serena’s, searching without hope, for any shred of connection.

 “Going forward, when I send you a departmental email, my expectation is a prompt response. Are we clear?”

“As crystal, Ms. Campbell.”


End file.
